STREET FIGHTER IV

The latest update for Street Fighter IV has hit the App Store, bringing Muay Thai fighter Sagat into the fray. As an added bonus (and perhaps less of a a surprise than they’d hoped), Jamaican kick boxer Dee Jay is included as well.

There’s a caveat, however: You can’t play as Dee Jay until you compete in three versus matches, which is impossible unless you know someone else with the game. (Hint: If your buddy doesn’t want to pay for it, he or she can sign in on the App Store under your account and “re-download” it for free).

Also added in this update is a streamlined way to create versus matches and a fight request feature. And if you’re willing to drop $0.99 on it, a new in-app purchase is available that gives you alternate background music from Street Fighter II.

Our runner-up for the best game of March 2010 keeps getting better, as Street Fighter IV will soon add another new character in a free update. This time, it’s Crimson Viper, the American beauty who’s also a secret agent.

We don’t have a date for the update yet, but Capcom did send us over a batch of screenshots and a gameplay video. Check it out below to watch C. Viper go head to head with Cammy.

The last time Street Fighter IV received a content update, it was to add Cammy and Zangief to the roster. A few fan favorites are still missing from Street Fighter IV on the iPhone, but we expect to see even more free additions in the future.

Who knew? Street Fighter IV wasn’t just playable on iPhone… it was actually pretty fun! And it’s made Capcom a bucket of cash on the App Store, too. One good turn deserves another: Capcom’s about to release a free update for the game that will add Cammy and Zangief to the fray.

The lithe British secret agent and the ever-popular (if buffoonish) Russkie wrestler were on full display in the iPhone section of Capcom’s E3 booth. We tried a couple Thrust Kicks and Cannon Drills on for size while attempting to fend off Big Z’s arsenal of nasty suplexes. Everything seemed to be in order, as you can see in the below video.

Cammy and Zangief are going live later this month, for the low, low price of free. Knock yourselves out!

The first thing we’d like to say about Street Fighter IV for the iPhone and iPod Touch is this: Wow. Most people thought it wouldn’t be possible. Heck, we had our own doubts, but Capcom has gone and done it. They’ve made an incredibly playable, faithful, and fun port of Street Fighter IV for the iPhone.

Despite the device’s lack of physical buttons, the controls work great. Don’t expect the precision of an etched-out D-pad like the PS3’s, or the tactile feedback of an arcade stick. But considering that you’re sliding and tapping your thumbs on nothing but glass, Street Fighter IV feels marvelously responsive.

Long as I can see the light.

We admit that the D-pad in SF4 is big and ugly, and that its colors are loud enough to attract wild birds in mating season. However, it’s perfectly designed to accommodate the swoops and flicks necessary to perform all the sonic booms you’d ever want to throw. Arrows pointing in all eight directions make it easy to differentiate between inputs, so you’ll never jump forward when trying to dash.

The attack buttons have been minimized down to punch and kick, which suits the game just fine, and a chargeable F button lets you power up and unleash a flashy knockout punch. Those unfamiliar with the characters’ special attacks can enable the SP button, which lets you do these moves without having to memorize the joystick patterns. And last but not least, the gauge under the health bar acts as a super combo button that lets you channel the power you’ve built up throughout the fight. That’s a lot of abilities built into just a few buttons, and everything works surprisingly well.

Unfortunately, the roster has been downsized to just eight characters: Able, Blanka, Chun Li, Dhalsim, Guile, Ken, M. Bison, and Ryu. This is the game’s biggest drawback, as a single play-through of the tournament mode can be completed in under 15 minutes. Also disappointing is that multiplayer is only available through a local Bluetooth connection. It works just fine, but we wish we could duke it out with players online.

An eye-buggingly powerful flip kick.

The game makes up for these drawbacks with its polished presentation. The art is lively, and the animations have been trimmed down to their essentials in order to give fans of the series the impeccable control and timing they’re accustomed to. The game’s sound is another high point of the experience. Every time you land a hit, a deep thud comes through your earbuds, making even basic attacks feel satisfying. And of course the characters have voices, so you’ll get to hear Dhalsim belt out the word “yoga” every few seconds.

It’s not just the hardcore fans this game will appeal to. There’s an extremely deep tutorial system built in that walks new players through everything they’ll need to know about the game, including many of the intricacies veterans take for granted. Also helpful for newbies is the special moves list for each character available at any time on the pause menu.

Overall, Street Fighter IV is the fighting game that fans of the genre have been waiting for. While it only has eight fighters and a limited multiplayer mode, the core mechanics are as solid as we could have hoped. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have some hadokens to throw.

Street Fighter 4 coming to the iPhone is one of the biggest news stories since, well, the last big brand announced a port. Whether it’s GTA: Chinatown Wars, Plants vs Zombies, or any other major series stepping onto Apple’s iPhone, there’s nothing that gets gamers’ blood up like a classic game on their cutting-edge handheld. We played SF4 against Takeshi Tezuka, who worked on the original SF2 and is the current General Manager of Mobile Development for Capcom Japan, and we think hardcore and casual fighters alike won’t be disappointed by this handheld version.

Street Fighter 4 will feature eight classic characters: Ryu, Ken, Guile, Dhalsim, Chun-Li, Blanka, M. Bison, and Abel. The game will not feature separate storylines, but does offer a Tournament mode with a series of fights escalating in difficulty, and the familiar taunts when you win or lose.

But the first thing Tezuka-san wanted to show us was Dojo mode, which was described as ‘Street Fighter boot camp’. In this mode, you’ll receive a series of one-off challenges (which reminded us of the challenges from Pac-Man Championship Edition) that introduce strategies familiar to any longtime SF player. In one stage, normal attacks don’t do any damage, and you must only use special attacks to win.

Players are ranked either S, A, B, or C in these challenges, and we were assured that even the most dedicated players will have a difficult time reaching S on everything. When you finish a stage with a C or higher, you unlock the next round. Some of the higher-level challenges include Combo Training and the mysterious-sounding Fighting Secrets. We were even told that mastering these challenges will help you be a better SF4 player on the consoles or in the arcades.

To help you best these challenges, or the obligatory tournament and versus modes, you can rearrange the onscreen controls in a variety of ways. You can shrink the button size, individually drag them to where they’re the most comfortable, or increase their transparency.

The eight-direction joystick seemed to work very well for us, and the four buttonsï¿½” punch, kick, special, and focusï¿½” didn’t seem to sacrifice too much of the familiar fighting controls. Truly dedicated SF4 masters from the arcade and console worlds will be the final judge of that.

The Tournament mode and computer versus may not be where most players get their full $9.99 worth with this game. The Dojo mode and two-player Bluetooth multiplayer (no Wi-Fi) are the real draws for longevity.

Like Pac-Man CE, we see this as being a satisfactory translation with a number of tactical challenges that may be even more enjoyable than the main game. One thing is certain though: Capcom is paying attention to the iPhone in a big way, saying it’s the top-selling phone in Japan, and that means we can expect to see a lot more big series of theirs coming this year.

One of the best fighting games in recent memory is coming to the iPhone, continuing the onslaught of big-name console series we’ve seen announced for the iPhone. It’s Street Fighter IV, and we couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

SFIV has adapted its brand of deep yet accessible fighting to several systems, and now Capcom is going to try bringing it to iPhone. Fighting games haven’t exactly been outstanding so far in the iPhone’s life cycle, but if there’s any company that has a chance to break that cycle, it’s Capcom.

SFIV was just announced today, so details are still a little bit fuzzy. We’re hearing that the console game’s amazing graphical style will remain intact, and that most of the game will make the trip. It’s also being said that many classic characters will be included, but that several all new characters will be revealed as well. Ryu and Ken are the only confirmed fighters at this time. Multiplayer will not be online, only one-on-one via bluetooth connection.

The biggest worry for us is that the action won’t translate well to a system with no tactile buttons. The game will use a virtual joystick and buttons, but we’ll see just how well the game works with that form of input. Screenshots and a hands-on preview will be coming up soon.

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The fine folks at Milkbag games have released Sidewords. A fun little diversion of a word game that is the devil child of crosswords and scrabble. For each level in the game the grid must be completed to win the level — this means that each letter at the top and side must be used. And not just the top or side, but each word must be made up of letters from the top and side to create a grid. It’s a pain, but in the right kind of way. Even the simplest of the levels can be a head scratcher until you get used to the game. Well worth the $3 as a diversion while we wait for Milkbag to finally release Snow Siege.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math.

It’s not always easy to tear your kids away from their tablets and make them do something edifying. Thankfully, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math relieves you of this task by turning mathematics into a fun touchscreen video game. Win win!

Aimed at children 3-6 years old, the app makes math fun by ‘gamifying’ it, turning simple mathematics problems into little challenges so that your pre-schooler can learn and play at the same time.

There are more than two dozen mini-games, split across three categories: Numbers, Shapes and Measurements, and Add and Subtract. According to the developer the difficulty of these puzzles is adaptive too, so kids of any ability can be both encouraged and challenged.

Mini Dayz has launched and it’s a pixelated 2.5D open world that’s as brutal as the desktop version. In this game, the player is dumped on shore with nothing. They must scavenge around for food, water, and weapons while avoiding attack. It’s the kind of game where the goal is to stay alive as long as possible. But that will never be very long. It’s oddly free and seems to only have an ad on the main screen — for now.

Pewter Games has brought their charming point and click adventure The Little Acre to iOS. It’s an amazingly beautiful animated adventure set in a sort of hybrid magical / alien world. A great all ages adventure and very fun.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, The House of Da Vinci by Blue Brain Games. There’s a reason Leonardo Da Vinci is the only renaissance figure who routinely shows up in video games you know. With his remarkable inventiveness and genius for creative problem-solving, Da Vinci was a gamer through and through. He was just born 500 hundred years too soon. Thankfully, there are studios like Blue Brain Games to bring him to life in videogame form. The House of Da Vinci, which comes to us courtesy of a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, is a puzzler that seeks to channel the artistry and innovation of its title character.

You play as one of Da Vinci’s more promising apprentices, and you have the challenging task of trying to work out where the hell he’s gone. Was he assassinated by the church? Who knows. Has he quietly gone into a retirement? Perhaps. Did he accidentally invent a shrink ray and shrink himself down to the size of an dustmite? Probably not. Da Vinci’s workshop looks beautiful, thanks to some impressive 3D graphics, and the in-game environment is crammed with all the elaborate machines and crazy inventions you’d expect to find in the workplace of a renaissance genius.(more…)

Poly Bridge is out now on iOS, and it’s good to have it! It’s a great game and many seem to agree that it’s the best bridge builder game available. But the iOS versions, so far, is missing the sandbox mode. I would hope that it’s coming soon in an update. If you are all interested in physics puzzlers, grab this one. (Note: the video is for the PC version, I have yet to see a trailer for the mobile version, the developer Dry Cactus isn’t that great at marketing…)

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